Any film that has acclaimed “Lord Of The Rings” director and extreme horror fan Peter Jackson declaring in it’s trailer that this is one of the best horror films he has seen is going to have high expectations riding on it. Maybe too high, since it’s difficult for any movie, however excellent to live up to that kind of hype. This film makes a pretty good stab at it however. Directed by Eli Roth, it’s a hilarious horror comedy with some brilliant one liners and genuinely laugh out loud moments.

Cabin Fever

The plot is over familiar. It’s another one of those “college kids take a trip to the woods and bad stuff happens” movies. Still, there’s nothing wrong with that, you know exactly what you’re getting into with this film. Which is more than the aforementioned college kids do. The kids, all of whom come over as completely deranged, meet a guy in the woods who really needs their help and instead of offering their services, decide to set him on fire. Right. After this display of spontaneous madness, it rapidly becomes apparent that there is something radically wrong with all of them. In fact, they have all been struck down by a flesh eating bacteria that starts to work its gruesome magic on them. To make matters worse, the locals seem to have taken an intense dislike to them (maybe they are put off by the fact that the kids incinerated one of their fellows earlier on…not an unreasonable reaction). Things go from mad to worse for our anti heroes and the film dissolves into an increasingly odd parody of the entire genre.

Which if course is exactly what it is. following on from the success of “Scream”, this movie is very much in the same mould, taking the Mickey out of the familiar horror/slasher tropes and doing it with style. The cast are adept at handling the material and director Roth clearly knows what he is doing and understands the genre inside out. Though it has moments of complete, bonkers nonsense this is a great way to have a laugh with a few mates and a few beers.